Nikolas Köppl’s Post

Are you struggling with procrastination? Here are 3 things that helped me stop wasting time and actually get things done.” 1. Do it now. Stop waiting for later. 2. Plan tomorrow today. Each night, I block out my tasks in Google Calendar so I wake up with a plan. 3. Eliminate distractions. I turn on Focus mode so no notifications interrupt my work. These shifts helped me as a recovering procrastinator. What’s your #1 productivity hack? Drop it in the comments.” #howto #productivitytips

🔥 SRE Life Hack: The Art of the "Temporary Fix" (with a plan!) 🔥 Ever stare down a critical incident, stopwatch ticking, and know deep in your soul that a perfect, elegant solution just isn't happening in the next 5 minutes? This picture pretty much sums up that feeling! 🔧😂 As SREs, we often face scenarios where the initial Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR) value feels like a race against the clock to satisfy that immediate SLO. Sometimes, getting the service working again – even if it's held together with metaphorical duct tape and a few well-placed wrenches – is the absolute priority. Let's be real: In an outage, "hackfulness" to restore service fast is a valid first step. Our goal is to minimize impact, restore functionality, and meet those Service Level Objectives. But here's the crucial SRE distinction: Get it working NOW: Deploy that quick, perhaps slightly unconventional, fix to bring the service back online and stop the bleeding. Plan for the ALWAYS: Immediately after the dust settles, we dive into the Root Cause Analysis (RCA). That initial "hack" isn't the end game; it's a placeholder. We then meticulously design and implement the robust, scalable, and lasting solution, patching the problem mindfully and preventing future recurrences. It's about having the agility to respond rapidly and the discipline to build resilient systems. Who's with me? What's your favorite "hack" that saved the day (before you fixed it properly)? Share your war stories below! #SRE #SiteReliabilityEngineering #DevOps #MTTR #SLO #IncidentResponse #TechHumor #Reliability

When systems scale the problems you face are rarely about raw throughput. They’re about resilience. Take a common scenario like the one below! A downstream service starts slowing down. Not failing, just getting sluggish.  At first glance, this doesn’t look catastrophic but if left unchecked, it can snowball into a cascading failure across your ecosystem. Well, why do I say that entire system might go down ? 1️⃣ Calls start queuing up, threads get blocked 2️⃣ Retry logic(if misconfigured) adds more pressure instead of relief 3️⃣ Circuit breakers miss the rising latency 4️⃣ Long timeouts keep resources tied up far too long 5️⃣ Shared thread pools let one bad dependency impact unrelated features The system doesn’t crash all at once. It grinds.  And for users, that’s even worse as they don't know what's happening! Okay then how we tackle this? ▪️Retries with exponential backoff → Retrying is fine, but only if it backs off intelligently → Blind retries amplify failures ▪️Circuit breakers tuned for latency and error rate  → Don’t just look at failures. Watch for slowness → A slow service is often as bad as a down one ▪️Isolated thread pools  → One failing dependency shouldn’t starve everything else → Bulkhead isolation matters ▪️Fail-fast timeouts  → Waiting forever for a response isn’t resilience → Define strict SLAs and cut off early ▪️Chaos and latency testing  → Don’t assume. Simulate slowness, inject failures → Validate if your “safety nets” really work Resilience patterns are not “set and forget” They need to be tuned, tested and revisited under real-world conditions. Because at scale, it’s rarely the big outages that bite first. It’s the silent, creeping slowness that nobody accounted for. --- Follow Rohit Doshi for more ! 🙌🏻 Image Credits - Patrick Roos #systemdesign #interviews #softwareengineering #softwaredevelopment #interviewprep #growth #learning

💻✨ 5 Productivity Hacks Every Software Engineer Needs ✨💻 Productivity isn’t about doing more. It’s about creating an impact without burning out. Here are a few hacks that have helped me (and many engineers I know) stay sharp, focused, and effective 👇 ☕ Hack #1 – Take Breaks to Stay Focused Your brain is not a machine. Step away every 90 minutes → stretch, walk, hydrate. You’ll come back sharper and make fewer mistakes. 📝 Hack #2 – Plan Your Day Don’t let tasks control you — control them. Start with your Top 3 must-do tasks each morning. 🛠️ Hack #3 – Master Your Tools Your editor is your superpower. Learn IDE shortcuts. Use extensions to cut manual effort. Every mouse click saved = time back. 🚀 Hack #4 – Single-Tasking > Multitasking One bug at a time, one feature at a time. Multitasking leads to context-switch fatigue. Stay in flow → finish faster, with fewer errors. 🐞 Hack #5 – The 2-Minute Debug Rule If a bug can be fixed in <2 minutes, do it now. Don’t let small fixes pile up. Keeps backlog lean + brain free of clutter. 💡 My personal favorite? Hack #2 — it helped me figure out my priorities and saved a lot of time. Which one resonates with you the most...? Comment below👇

Most founders aren't losing time. They're losing attention. I realized something brutal: You can work 12 hours and accomplish nothing. Because you're interrupted every 7 minutes. A Slack ping. A "quick question." An "urgent" email that isn't. Here's what changed everything for me: → I don't manage time anymore. I protect ENERGY. 3 rules that bought back 15 hours/week: 1. Deep work blocks = non-negotiable 90 minutes. Phone off. Door closed. One outcome only. 2. Decision batching I answer all low-stakes questions once per day. Not scattered throughout. 3. The $10/hr test If someone making $10/hr can do it → I delegate it. If not → I automate it. What's left → That's MY work. The truth? You don't need more time. You need fewer distractions pretending to be priorities. What's the one interruption stealing your focus today?

💭 Protect Your Focus A developer's best tool is not just a machine; it's intense concentration. Distractions are like bugs in real life. There are too many, and nothing runs smoothly. Tip for Thursday: 1. Turn off notifications. 2. Focus on the most important work for the day. 3. Small distractions can wait. Focus is the foundation for productivity. #ThursdayThoughts #Focus #Developer Mindset

The server crashed at 3 AM. 500,000 users couldn't access the platform. I'd pushed the code that broke everything. My phone wouldn't stop buzzing. Heart racing. Hands shaking. That sickening feeling in your stomach when you realize you've broken production. We've all been there. Here's your survival guide for when things go wrong: 🚨 Immediate Response • Alert key stakeholders immediately - your lead, ops team, and customer support • Be clear and specific: "Service X is down, impacting Y users, discovered at Z time" • Start documenting everything you do from this moment 🛠️ Recovery Mode • Focus on fixes, not fault • Work with the team to identify quickest resolution path • Keep communication channels open and updates flowing 📝 Post-Incident Steps • Write a detailed incident report • Include timeline, impact, root cause • Document prevention measures for the future 🌱 Growth Strategy • Schedule a blameless post-mortem • Share learnings with the team • Update processes to prevent similar issues The truth? Breaking production is a tech industry rite of passage. It's not career-ending. It's career-defining. The best engineers I know have all broken something significant. What sets them apart isn't perfection - it's how they handled the crisis. What's your "breaking production" story? How did you handle it? Share your survival tips below. #TechLife #Engineering #CareerGrowth

How frustrating is when an error message tells you what’s wrong, but doesn’t explain how to fix it? It’s like failing a test without knowing the answers. Instead of just stating the issue, helping users find the right path lets them solve problems more quickly. Positive examples in error messages give users direction and boost their confidence. This makes recovery smoother and less stressful. We should guide users to success,  not just highlight their mistakes. Have you ever encountered an error message  that helped you fix something quickly instead of confusing you?

Monday is already halfway through! And sometimes the best way forward is to start small. Betsy Beyer knows this better than most. As one of Google’s Site Reliability Engineers and co-author of the famous SRE Book, she helped define how the biggest systems on Earth can stay reliable at scale. Her reminder is simple: Automation doesn’t replace good #engineering It amplifies it. And that’s exactly the lesson for us in the #powersector. Medium-voltage #transformers, #substations, #energystorage <3.... They don’t get safer or smarter just because you throw software at them. They get better when discipline, design, and human judgment come first 🫡 'N automation is layered to strengthen, not shortcut. So if today feels too big, start with one thing: Make the system more reliable than it was yesterday. 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀. Wish y'all smooothly productive (not roughly busy ;) week 😉